


Human After All

by Esca



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Gore, M/M, Mutilation, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Second person POV, Species Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esca/pseuds/Esca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As you carve, as he screams, you allow yourself this one indulgence, just as you grant him his.</p>
<p>For now, you’ll let yourself feel the slightest bit pale for Cronus Ampora.</p>
<p>
  <em>For now.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human After All

You can’t believe he’s asking such a thing of you.

What are you saying.

Of course you can--this is Cronus. He is impulsive, irrational, and apparently his lack of bodily respect extends even to himself. 

You’ve indulged his dalliances, his desires to be human--because like the rest of your friends, you too thought it was a phase, some manner of a crutch he was imposing upon himself to warrant concupiscent attentions.

But this is something more.

After a while you were forced to accept that this wasn’t a game.

Cronus longed to be human. So much so that he would do anything just to feel even the remotest bit comfortable in his own skin. 

“So wvill you do it? I just don’t trust anyone else like I trust you, Kankri.”

A foreign surge of pale feelings make your blood-pusher throb almost painfully. Were it not for your vow of celibacy, you would consider Cronus for moirallegiance. The fact that he openly trusts you the most out of eleven other potential prospects makes you feel... happy, in a sense. Appreciated. You know you aren’t always the easiest to accommodate and get on with, so for one person to actually like you enough to place their faith in you gives you the push you need to do this.

You’ll only do it because it’s Cronus.

Because as he is, he suffers. He feels wrong. You know what it means to suffer. You come from a long line of those who have suffered. If you have within you the power to alleviate a comrade’s pain, then why should you not give them that courtesy?

“Hey, kitten. Vwe’re already dead. Wvhat’s the vworst that could happen, really?”

You want to chide him for the pet name, but you know he doesn’t mean it in a demeaning form. After being around him for so long, you can differentiate between his pet names and his insults. He insults Mituna. He calls upon you with a fondness that makes you feel warm.

You glance down at the little switchblade Cronus gave you from the pocket of his human-style greaser jacket and flick it open with a twitch of your wrist. Grasping onto his left face fin, you hesitate briefly, but find your resolve, and begin carving.

More of those pale feelings overwhelm you as violet blood trickles down his cheeks and jaw-line and gets on your fingers, pooling in the crevasse of your nail-beds only to stain your short claws a brilliant shade of lavender.

He is in pain. So much pain. You want to stop, because his scream is the most horrible thing to ever grace your sponge-clots.

“Don’t you evwen fuckin’ dare--!” He manages to gasp out.

You continue on. You don’t stop carving until the fin is neatly in your palm. He’s breathing so heavily, like he’s about to go into shock. In a display of the most diamond sort you have ever graced another troll in your entire existence (if one could even call this existing), you hush him and mop away the excess blood so you can sew up the gaping wound in his handsome face.

It takes you a couple of tries to thread the needle--you were never particularly a dab hand at sewing, unlike Porrim, so talented a seamstress. Your stitches are sloppy, but efficient enough that you can pull the skin together tightly. All the while, you’re running your knuckles down the side of his profile in an effort to soothe him. It appears to be helping him.

You ask him if he wishes for you to continue on after you tie off the thread into a secure knot and instruct him not to mess with it.

His nod is all the confirmation you need.

As you carve, as he screams, you allow yourself this one indulgence, just as you grant him his.

For now, you’ll let yourself feel the slightest bit pale for Cronus Ampora.

_For now._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :o)


End file.
